Per Pat Summitt - often misquoted - offense wins fans, defense wins games and rebounding wins championships.
And no, I don't mean it literally, just to reflect on how much good rebounding, and especially on the offensive end, can mean.
As far as the first game, I found it entertaining. Incarnate Word was a dreadful team during the season, under .500, that caught fire in their conference tourney. Gritty and fun to watch, but still not really good basketball. Howard had some really nice plays mixed in to what it seems you get when you are playing a bad team without anything to lose. Howard is good for their level of ball, the MEAC is a long, long way from the Power 5 / Big East and even the A10.
As to DePaul - who would have thought we wouldn't watch the whole game? Epic beatdown. Someone asked about DePaul's style, I can't say that was their style when he started in the '80's - but it has been for as long as we have seen them play, close on 25 years now.